


A Foreign Perspective: Side Story

by lal nila syrin (lalnilasyrin)



Category: D N Angel, D.N. Angel, D.N.Angel, DN Angel, DNAngel, Danny Phantom, d. n. angel
Genre: Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Other, age accurate DP+DN, college!daisuke, older!daisuke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 04:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3194927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalnilasyrin/pseuds/lal%20nila%20syrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another night on the roof...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Foreign Perspective: Side Story

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Anniversary, everyone!! W-wow, can you believe it’s been _a whole year_ since I first published _[A Foreign Perspective, Part 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1184030)_? It’s been a long, long journey, and while I had actually hoped to publish the final chapter on the anniversary, I haven’t even finished the finale’s next chapter, so I’ll still be working on this a little while longer!
> 
> It’s been a long year, and I look forward to whatever happens next! If you’ve enjoyed AFP thus far please don’t hesitate to tell me any and all of your thoughts! I love seeing your reactions and comments!
> 
> In the meantime, please enjoy this side story! I felt the need to do _something_ for the anniversary, y-you know? This side story can happen at any point between Chapters 36 and 40 (just like the first half-dozen parts of AFP, the temporal placement of this is a bit ambiguous!), and it’s not terribly spoilery and is just for fluff. So without further ado…

It had been a while since Daisuke had sat up on the roof of his apartment, he realized as he climbed up and set his things down, turning on his portable lamp and beginning to write a letter to home. The roof was still one of his favorite places, of course, but it was now because of its familiarity and comfort rather than it was for the longing to be closer to the sky. The stars still twinkled above, the blanket of night still bringing fond remembrances with it, but the wind was warm and inviting. It reminded him of a dream he had once when he was much younger, about wanting to become the wind—it had been a strange feeling in the dream, blowing his peaceful and heartfelt warmth under the wings of someone else.

It had been nearly ten years since he had that dream—and when he recalled it now, his mind drifted toward a different kind of feeling. He may not have become the wind, but he had experienced something similar, hadn’t he? He distinctly remembered the impression of blowing like a cold breeze in the company of his ghost friend—it wasn’t a warming gale like the one in his dream, but it was cooling and calming, much like the touch of the one who had carried him through the air when he had felt that sensation.

Speaking of whom…

"Hey, Daisuke! Check this out!" Danny flew up to the apartment roof excitedly, waving something in his hand. The redhead blinked, his pencil stopping mid-sentence abruptly, leaving his letter incomplete.

"What is it?" He asked curiously, tilting his head to give the white-haired ghost boy a sideways glance as he settled into his usual perch, his spectral tail splitting into two legs as he floated down like a slow-motion version of flopping lazily onto a couch.

Danny grinned widely, showing him the little black flip phone in his hand. “Sam got me a phone to use as Phantom, you know, in case I need to call someone who doesn’t have the Fenton Phones.”

"Why do you need a separate phone for Phantom?" The artist chuckled, absently going back to his letter as Danny flipped open the phone and started playing with it.

"Well, it’s mostly for emergencies. Like if I can’t change back, or, say, someone got hurt during a ghost attack and I need to call an ambulance." Danny shrugged. "Not that that happens often, but…"

"Why wouldn’t you be able to change back?" Daisuke quirked a perplexed eyebrow.

Danny’s glowing green eyes met his in a half-lidded deadpan expression. “Remember that time I came to your place with my arm nearly chopped off, and I asked to use your phone?”

"Oh," Daisuke grimaced at the boy’s equally deadpan tone. "When you put it like that, it sounds like using my phone was more important than the fact that you were injured."

The half-ghost chuckled, shrugging, “Yeah, well, I guess this certainly answers ‘do ghosts use phones,’ right, Daisuke?” He waved the black phone playfully.

"I guess," Daisuke agreed, sighing and shaking his head. "Alright, I see your point. Phantom having a phone is useful."

Danny brought the phone back in front of him, pressing a few buttons and filling the air between them with little melodic beeps. “Imagine the fangirls, though, if they knew Danny Phantom had a phone.”

"You’re referring to yourself in third person," Daisuke commented in amusement, going back to his letter, "Did I ever tell you about the time I taught Dark how to use my cell phone?"

Danny blinked. He glanced over at his friend with furrowed eyebrows. “…Is this going to be a sad story or a funny one?” He asked cautiously, since he never knew which way Daisuke’s feelings would swing when it came to tales about his friends.

"Funny," Daisuke replied with a chuckle, and Danny relaxed immediately, "He actually had no idea how to use modern technology, and when he first saw my cell phone he thought it was a… what’s the English word for a handheld intercom?" Daisuke looked over in questioning.

"Uh…" Danny frowned, crossing his arms and tapping his phone on his chin as he looked up in thought, "A walkie-talkie? Sounds about right…"

"Yes, well, he thought it was one of those." Daisuke gave a lopsided grin, "After I told him what it was, he was disinterested for a while because he had no one to really talk to… until Mom taught him how to send texts using anonymous numbers."

"Oh man… did he prank someone?" Danny asked with wide eyes. "Please say he got someone good."

Daisuke laughed heartily, nodding. “He tried to prank Satoshi-kun… but as usual, nothing got past him. So he decided to get back at Dark, and basically… my phone was flooded with fan mails for Dark for days,” his hand came up to push some bangs out of the way, and Danny saw a fond twinkle in Daisuke’s bright red eyes. “Satoshi-kun didn’t mean for it to inconvenience me, so he did apologize, but some of the stuff that was sent to Dark… even Dark got red in the face at them. I had fun teasing him about it while I could.”

Danny laughed with the redhead. “What did the texts say?” He asked curiously, mirth dancing in his very demeanor.

"It would be inappropriate to repeat them to you," Daisuke admitted, "Let’s just say some were from overzealous fangirls… and others were from their angry boyfriends. And the occasional overzealous fan _boy_. Dark was not excited about _that_.”

The two burst out laughing again, harder this time, and Danny gasped for air. “Oh man, that’s—that’s hilarious! Now I really…  _really_  hope the fangirls don’t find out Phantom has a phone now! Sam would kill me!”

"Well," Daisuke shook his head as he tried to quell his laughter, his hair flopping to the side as he moved, "it’s not like anyone would be able to get your number even if they did see you with a phone…"

"Yeah, it’s only for Team Phantom," the ghostly teenager grinned sheepishly, "though since you’re kind-of-sort-of an honorary member, and you know my secret, I put your number in there too." And as he said this, he turned the phone screen toward Daisuke, showing him the contact number labelled "DN".

Daisuke blinked, then smiled happily. “I’m glad to know you consider me important enough for such a thing,” he said gratefully, “but I think it would be more helpful if I actually knew it was you who was calling me.” He tucked his pencil behind his ear and shifted a little, carefully balancing his letter on his knee and pulling out his phone from his jeans pocket.

"I’ll just text you," Danny shrugged nonchalantly, punching in a quick text of _"Heyyy :P"_  and hitting send.

"Is that ‘P’ for ‘Phantom’?" Daisuke asked, tapping a few buttons to add the number to his contacts list, typing in the initials "DP" rather than an actual name for his address book. "And what’s with the colon mark?"

Danny stared hard at his friend in disbelief. “…Are you serious?”

Daisuke looked over, tilting his head innocently. “What? It’s a legitimate question.”

"It’s an emoticon… a smiley? Err, a happy face sticking its tongue out. The colon marks are the eyes," Danny tried to explain. "How can you not know what those are? It’s like, standard text messaging stuff."

"Oh…" Daisuke looked back at the text message on his phone, turning it sideways to get a better visual of what Danny described. "Ah, now I see it."

Danny still stared at him incredulously. “Geez, you’re like one of those grandpas that don’t get technology.” He shook his head in playful exasperation.

"I am not! To be fair, Japanese emoticons are of a different format." Daisuke chuckled, typing in a reply and looking up at the ghost boy in amusement. "I think it’s a culture difference thing."

Danny blinked, looking down at his phone when it buzzed and vibrated, and opened the text.

 _"ww_ (*^▽^*) _—Dai.”_

"Whoa, how’d you do that triangle thing?" Danny gasped in awe, "That’s pretty cool. So Japanese emoticons aren’t rotated?"

"Yeah, I’ve got a whole list of them." Daisuke chuckled, "I use them with Harada-tachi a lot because they think it’s cute, so I set up my phone to have them in the memory." He showed Danny his phone, scrolling through a dozen or so of the cute little faces.

"Wow, cool." Danny leaned over curiously, then looked back at his phone, "Seems like a lot of typing though, colon-P is easier for me. But what’s that ‘W’ thing?"

"Ah, it’s… hmm, I guess it’s an abbreviation for laughing? I think I heard about an English equivalent, something like ‘LOL’. That’s what that is," Daisuke explained, "See, there’s a character in the Japanese alphabets called ‘wa’ that’s sometimes written with and read as ‘ha’, so people often abbreviate it by just typing ‘W’ to represent laughing."

"Interesting… Japanese sounds complicated though." Danny’s lips twisted into a frown, "Why would you have a letter like ‘wa’ and read it as ‘ha’? That’s misleading."

"No more misleading than that ‘I’ before ‘E’ rule, Danny." Daisuke gave a crooked smile, "We have rules for when it’s read as ‘wa’. Mostly, we use ‘wa’ when it’s a particle. But I guess you wouldn’t know what that is, since you don’t really have it in English…"

Danny looked contemplative for a moment, trying to absorb that, before he finally commented, “Okay, yeah, ‘I’ before ‘E’ words are pretty weird.” He laughed a little, then asked, “So what’s a particle?”

"Umm… I don’t really know how to explain it, but I guess it’s like an indicator?" Daisuke scratched his head, "I can explain stuff about a translation from Japanese to English, because I took those lessons, but I wouldn’t have the experience to explain something like that from English to Japanese…. Sorry. Maybe you should take a class?" He shrugged, grinning sheepishly.

The ghost boy leaned back thoughtfully, lifting his phone to play with it again. “I guess if I’m going to visit you in Japan, I really should learn some, huh?” He mused, “Jazz mentioned it actually. She said Miss Risa suggested it, so she looked it up.”

"Oh?" Daisuke took his pencil from where it was forgotten behind his ear, setting his phone in his lap before he continued writing his letter, "Knowing Jazz, she’ll be fluent in Japanese in a year or two."

"Yeah, probably," Danny chuckled, "but Japanese isn’t really offered at our schools, so she found this thing that was like a Saturday school? It’s like two hours every Saturday morning, in this little community college campus. I don’t really like getting up on Saturday mornings, but I’m thinking about signing up for it too."

Daisuke beamed. “Well, I’ll be happy to help you practice, if you do sign up for it.”

"Thanks," Danny grinned, continuing to play idly on his phone, mostly exploring the features since he still didn’t know what Sam put on it, "I actually talked to Lancer about it. Since I haven’t taken Spanish yet, Jazz said I might be able to use that class as a substitute for my ‘two years of foreign language’ requirement for college. Lancer was pretty surprised, but he agreed to help me substitute the class and with all the transfer credit stuff when I finally get around to applying."

"That’s nice of him," his friend smiled softly, "Lancer is… your English teacher, correct?"

"And vice principal," Danny nodded. "He’s actually not that bad. I always fall asleep in his class and I’m a pretty horrible student, what with balancing hero life and all, but for some reason he’s always helping me out… he’s the reason I haven’t flunked yet. I owe him a lot, though I don’t really know how to thank him except by just… trying harder in his class, you know?"

"I’ve seen your schoolwork," Daisuke commented, causing the ghostly teenager to look over at him, "I think I know the reason why he helps you—you put effort into your work, and when you put your mind to it, it’s obvious you’ve got a lot of potential. And your potential is infinite." His ruby red eyes locked with slightly wide electric green, "Mr. Lancer seems like a good judge of character at his core—he may not know why, but he knows your heart is in the right place, and you’re destined for something great. So maybe that’s why he helps you."

Danny stared, completely nonplussed. After a moment, he grinned and said, “Yeah, maybe.” He looked back at his phone contemplatively, fiddling with it idly. “I think I wouldn’t mind if he knew about Phantom… well, I don’t plan on telling him, but if he found out on his own somehow, or he put two and two together like you did, maybe….” He paused, his thumbs hovering over the number pad, and he smiled softly. “Well, maybe I can give him this number someday, even if he didn’t find out. He seems like a good person to have in my corner.”

"American slang, Danny. I don’t know what that ‘corner’ idiom is," Daisuke mused absently, chuckling, "but I get what you mean. Still, if you think he’s a trustworthy adult, he can probably help you out with some better advice than I could ever give you."

"You give plenty of good advice, Daisuke," Danny rolled his eyes, jumping a little when he accidentally selected a ringtone media file and it blasted its chirping tune loudly from the phone speakers. He turned down the volume quickly, before choosing another file to check out, his curiosity making his redheaded friend smile in amusement.

"I can only hope," was all Daisuke said before he went back to focusing on his letter.

Danny glanced up at him briefly, wondering what that comment meant—but his thoughts were quickly distracted by the next ringtone file that sang from his phone.

"Oh, man!  _Ghost Busters_!” He exclaimed excitedly, “I love that movie!” He giggled, humming along with the tune until it ended. “Daisuke—you gotta set this as your ringtone for me! You know what, everyone should!” He grinned so widely his face almost split in half, quickly opening a new text message and putting all his contacts in the recipient bar. He attached the file with a  _"This should be my ringtone!! XD"_  and sent it off, laughing cheerfully.

Daisuke chuckled and shook his head, tucking his pencil behind his ear again and picking up his phone, downloading the file. “Is it just because you like this song, or because it’s ironic?”

"Well, I think it’d be hilarious too, but yeah, all of the above." Danny cackled, especially when his friends all sent back texts of similar nature—basically, calling him a dork.

Daisuke peeked over his shoulder and saw this, and he laughed, doing the same just to poke fun at the boy.

"Hey! Just because you put it in Japanese, doesn’t mean I don’t know what that says!" Danny gasped in playful appall, then laughed again and shook his head. When their laughter died down, Danny looked over the text again, if only to try to decipher it so he could call Daisuke it in the future. He blinked, pausing. "Hey… why do you always sign your texts ‘Dai’?"

"My phone does it automatically," Daisuke shrugged, tucking his phone in his pocket after he finished changing the contact settings, once again returning to his letter, "but that’s my nickname, you know."

"I didn’t know!" Danny blinked, "I mean, who wants a nickname that sounds like ‘die’?"

"It’s a perfectly common nickname in Japan," Daisuke remarked nonchalantly, "but the name sounding like ‘die’ is why I don’t really go by it here. No one really calls me Dai but my family and some of my friends, anyhow."

"Really?" The ghost boy tilted his head. Everyone called him Danny—with a few exceptions, mostly adults like Vlad—so it was weird to think Daisuke had a nickname no one used.

"Yeah. It’s kind of embarrassing, because it’s a bit childish. Mom and Grandpa would call me ‘Dai-chan’… Dark used to do it too, sometimes, to make fun of me. Saehara at least leaves off the ‘chan’ part," Daisuke explained with an exasperated sigh, "And sometimes when I need to be brief, I sign texts or papers with ‘Dai’ by itself. It’s a lot faster than writing out my whole name, character-wise."

"Huh… I never really thought of nicknames as childish," Danny said slowly, thinking about the list of people who called Daisuke by his nickname. Half of them were dead, which was kind of sad, and he knew from Daisuke’s stories that Saehara had been the redhead’s best friend since they were kids. But even then, the list was so small… It seemed like only people who were super close to Daisuke could even think about calling him that.

Daisuke seemed content to fall into their usual comfortable silence, seeing as Danny had zoned off in thought. He was surprised, however, when Danny spoke up again.

"So is it okay if I call you Dai?"

The redheaded artist blinked, looking over at his friend. He stared at him blankly for a moment, before he smiled softly and nodded. “If you’d like—I’d be honored.”

Danny grinned brightly, radiating a mirth that was contagious. “Cool,” he nodded, looking down at his phone and going into the art student’s contact, changing “DN” to “Dai” with a fond expression.

He continued messing around with his phone, and Daisuke went back to his letter, their usual companionable silence between them, broken only by the scratching of the pencil and the beep of the cell phone’s number pad.

Both of them smiled as a warm breeze passed them by, comfortable in each other’s uplifted spirits.


End file.
